One Year Of #MeToo: Where Are We Heading To?

#MeToo culminated as a national movement in America last year but is a global pandemic today. Reports account for a whopping 50 percent increase in the number of reported cases, especially at the workplace. It’s been a year but looks like this is just the beginning. Awful but true. The scenario today offers a more sinister version of the state of affairs engulfing places we haven’t thought of.

Talk about India - the country where values and culture have always overpowered resentment and ill will. The nation has witnessed #MeToo as a trending hashtag of late. Celebrities have been taking up the bold step of coming forward and exposing the devil faces of the so-called respected public figures, Tanushree Dutta to be the latest add-on in the list. Is it a result of western influence or just the new age mindset, where everything is just ‘cool’?

While #MeToo is a reflection of the decline of human values, the only positive thing about the entire scenario is acceptance. The voices are now heard and respected. Today, women who muster the courage to seek justice and expose their predators are not treated as lying sluts (well, mostly!). Instead, they are given platforms to raise their voice.

It’s high time now that we realize the significance of our breed. What mainly differentiates us from the four-legged beasts is the emotion of empathy. Animals can relate to only two things: survival and procreation. Homo sapiens are wired differently. The programming is done to feel, think and act rationally. If we delve deep into the cause of sexual harassment, one thing that we can conclude is that in such cases the intelligence of the culprit is hijacked by his hormones. This is a variant of mental sickness.

The need of the hour is to perform a thorough reality check. Where are we heading towards? Have we forsaken the need to be dignified? The bottom line still remains to maintain a Line Of Control where getting over-friendly is not misconstrued as giving signals. If a female is ignoring any kind of flirtatious behavior, that does not necessarily mean she is available.

Mind you guys, harassment in any form is evil, but sexual harassment is so terrible that the victim is termed as a ‘survivor.’ Do you get the intensity?

#MeToo is no more gender-specific today. I reserve my empathy for broken men, but since the fairer sex is relatively more victimized, the opinion above might appear one-sided.

Despite the laws that existed even before, campaigns like #MeToo are making ground to move the tectonic plates of the gender hierarchy. Let’s try to be sane and human and help those who aren’t.